Candidates Face Off Again

All five Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate will meet today at 1 p.m. at the University of Connecticut for a debate sponsored by Fox 61 and The Courant.

Despite her comments during last Thursday’s WVIT-TV debate where she called U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy a pro-Israel “whore,” Lee Whitnum will be included in this debate as well.

Former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, state Rep. William Tong, Matthew Oakes, and Murphy all will participate.

Following last week’s performance the other candidates were talking about excluding Whitnum from the debates, and Nancy DiNardo, chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, is expected to have a conversation with her about the “whore” comment, according to Brian Lockhart of the Stamford Advocate.

Whitnum posted this press release on her website last week explaining that she “blames her disconnect and hostility at the end of the debate on being ‘flabbergasted’ at the other candidates apparent ignorance of well-documented fact.”

Whitnum goes on to say that “the entire reason why I run for public office is because of the Neoconservatives’ role in the taking down of Iraq.”

While America’s support of Israel seems to be the sole focus of Whitnum’s campaign, she said last week after the debate that “I think I have plenty of other issues.”